


Man in the Mirror

by Wolfling



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-26
Updated: 2010-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfling/pseuds/Wolfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avoid it or seek it out, it shows how he really is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN 30 shots nano table. Prompt word: reflection. Spoilers up to 5.06

When he first came back from Hell, Dean had had a problem with mirrors. Glimpsing his own eyes tended to send him into flashbacks, seconds where the pain and fear from his time down below rolled over him like a tidal wave.

And that was before he'd remembered everything that had happened. After the ghost sickness, after it had all come back to him, it had gotten worse. He felt so horrible, so much like he was a monster just under his skin that seeing his perfectly unscarred face seemed wrong somehow. His eyes however had been something different and after meeting his own gaze in the mirror once, he'd avoided doing so again.

So he did his best to stay away from mirrors, using them only when it was absolutely necessary and even then keeping it to brief glimpses and focusing on the minute details so he didn't have to look at himself on the whole.

Until Zachariah had yanked him into the future and made Dean face a different kind of reflection.

Physically, Dean's future self had been, near as he could see, absolutely identical. No new scars or grey hairs or anything to make the difference between them evident. But from the start, looking at him had felt like looking at a stranger.

It was the eyes. There had been no light in them, no passion. They were as cold and lifeless as a shark's. In a lot of ways, future Dean had been dead long before Lucifer in Sam had snapped his neck.

It had been one of the most profoundly disturbing things about something that had seemed made up of nothing but profoundly disturbing things, and one of the first things Dean had done when he had the chance after he was back was find a mirror and stare at his reflection to make sure that wasn't him. Not yet. Not ever, if he had anything to say about it.

By now it had grown into a habit, almost a compulsion really. Every time he passed by a mirror he had to stop and look now. Make sure it was still him looking back, and not that other Dean.

"Dude, what's taking you so long? Did you fall in or something?" Sam's voice drifted through the door, startling Dean out of his reverie.

"Keep your shirt on," he shot back, glaring as he opened the door. "Can't a guy get some private time without being harrassed?"

"The last time you had some private time you ended up using my razor to shave your palm," Sam said, as he shouldered past Dean. "Damned right I'm going to harass you."

"Oh bite me," Dean told him, glancing in the mirror one more time as he was leaving. What he saw put a grin on his face. He and Sam all up in each other's space, snarking at each other with an ease that had been missing between them for far too long.

As long as that was what the mirror reflected, him and Sam together, Dean knew they had a chance and that was really all anyone could ask.


End file.
